Gay And Catholic In The Philippines

This is a direct reaction to your “Church in the
Castro” post, but is also relevant to your continuing discussion about
the Catholic Church and homosexuality. I can see how it pains you to see the
Church that you love say such hateful things toward us homosexuals. I was born
and raised a Catholic, educated in a Jesuit university for 20 years, and even entered
the Jesuit Novitiate. I reckon I loved the Church as much as you, but unlike
you, I have decided to leave the Catholic Church because I have come to realize
that God is bigger than this one church, and everything that the Catholic
Church could ever teach me about life, love, and God, I already knew. We were
taught to love the Church like our mother or teacher, but in real life there
comes a time when we outgrow our parents and teachers. This does not mean we
cease loving them, but there must be a recognition that the dominance that the
parent or teacher used to exercise over the child cannot continue.

As a gay man who is thoroughly steeped in Catholic ways, I
have come to realize that my Church had mis-educated me all this time. She
taught me how to hate my homosexuality and to see myself as somehow less than
human. In my long struggle, which culminated in my coming out of the closet and
claiming my pride and dignity as a gay man, I came to realize that my
homosexuality is the lamp that the Church insisted I place under a bushel, but
which Jesus had in fact been telling me to put on a table to light the whole
world. I continue to read and pray over the Gospels on a daily basis, but I let
the Holy Spirit enlighten me, and not those closeted, self-hating men in the Vatican.

I have written a book about my life which I am
self-publishing. It’s entitled “God Loves Bakla” with the
subtitle “My Life in the Closet.” I initially tried to get in
published in Manila,
but the leading gay publisher there was afraid about the reaction of the
Catholic Church. Thus I have decided to self-publish in Phnom Penh, and the book should be out by
next month or early next year. Leading LGBT advocates in the Philippines tell me that this is the first book
of its kind in the Philippines,
and they look forward to GLB enriching the discourse. My book is a lot like
Paul Monette’s “Becoming a Man” but what distinguishes it is
the religious/spiritual approach that I take in the book. Many books have been
written about being gay in the Philippines,
but none (or at least no full-length work) on being gay and Catholic.

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